Tuesday Tip

An easy, painless money saving tip every Tuesday

In honor of Earth Day this week, an environmentally friendly tip:

Use resusable grocery bags. You've heard the guilt trips to use resusable grocery bags to keep plastic bags out of landfills, buy maybe you don't want to purchase the bags or think that it sounds like a lot of trouble. But did you know that there are a number of grocery stores that offer discounts for using reusable bags?

For instance, Giant offers a $.05 discount for every bag you reuse, even if it's just a reused plastic bag. So if you buy one of the $.99 reusable bags available in any store, it will only take 20 shopping trips to recoup the cost, and after that you're making money! Not a lot of money, maybe, but it's something. I also actually really love those reusable bags that most stores sell. They hold much more than a plastic bag; they're stronger; and the flat bottom keeps them from falling over in the trunk. But you don't even have to buy bags. If you're like me, you may have tons of tote bags in your house already that you could use for groceries. Then any discount you get for using them is money in your pocket.

PS - I was unable to find a comprehensive list online of stores that offer discounts for using reusable bags, so I thought I might try to compile such a list myself. If you know of such a store or find a list of stores, please let me know in the comments section or send me an email. Thanks so much!